Philadelphia Travel Forum

I hate to make two post but I just realized that the Wissahickon Creek area is very close to where I will be visiting while in Philly. I can walk there from where I will be staying and apparently it is a nice area! I am wondering what trails or things like that are the best in the area! Also - any suggestions for photography?

Lots and lots of stuff in Fairmount Park: http://www.fairmountpark.org/

There are trails, historic sites, playing fields, etc. Please look at their website, because the park is gigantic and it's really too much to describe.

I use the park for running and also run along the trails that go up the banks of the Schuylkill. You can go pretty much as far as you want--the trails are very long. They're very well used.

One neat thing in Fairmount Park is the cricket fields. If you go there on a weekend in the summer, you can sit there cricket games played by what appears to be every Jamaican, Pakistani, Trinidadian, etc. taxi driver in the city!

The immediate area where you are staying, East Falls, is very cute (although the cute part is pretty small). Take a walk up to Germantown Avenue also--there are some nice little shops and restaurants up there in Mt. Airy.

Not sure about photography since the answer could be very different depending on what you like to take pictures of (nature? people? city scenes?)

I also run and hike in the Wissahickon as I live about half a mile away and I often see photographers there. The main path is called Forbidden Drive because when cars started to replace horses they were banned from using this road. You still see horses on it fairly often. It is a wide gravel/dirt road used by walkers, runners, bikers, horseback riders and all other non-motorized people. Forbidden Drive runs from the county line at Northwestern Ave down to Lincoln Dr. where it intersects with the paved path leading to the Schuylkill River and the connection into center city. You can actually walk from center city Philadelphia to Valley Forge and a bit beyond but that's a whole day adventure.
There are various trails following along the Wissahickon Creek many of which allow bikes and horses on them. There are also various historic buildings around the park including the only urban covered bridge in the US. You can also have lunch or dinner at Valley Green Inn one of the original overnight stops in Colonial days.
So I think you won't have any trouble finding things to photograph.

The waterfalls and the old inn are photographed a lot. There’s an Indian statue on the trails on the Chestnut Hill side also. There are trails all over the wissahickon valley but none of them have names. Here’s a link to a trail map below. If you want to hike I suggest the trails opposite Forbidden Drive on the other side of the crick.

http://citymaps.phila.gov/ParksAndRec/cmFairmountParkMap.aspx?ADDRESS=W+BELLS+MILL+RD+%26+WISSAHICKON+DR&PX=2674708.44619655&PY=281753.925478187&ZL=6